Nocturnal Emulsions

[John Kasaian]

My faves are TMY and FP-4+, but alas I'm down to my last unopened box of TMY(the old stuff) and my FP-4+ stockpile has dwindled down. I want to conserve whats left of the TMY for a future project and I really can't "swing" an order for more FP-4+ (or "son of TMY" for that matter!) until next month...so I'm wondering how Fomapan 100 (which I do have) would stack up? FWIW I've seen some beautiful night stuff shot with PL100 but I don't have any of that on hand right now either

Has anyone here shot Foma 100 at night? Your thoughts? Your commments? I know it takes some experimentation to perfect one's technique with sheet film at night but I'd like to know if it would be worth it with Fomapan 100 or if I should stick with what I know works?
Chhers!

[domenico Foschi]

Hi John,
I was just going to suggest Foma 100.
I have not tried it at night but I mean to.
I develop it with HC 110 dilution H and it is great.
I think it should lend itself nicely to this kind of exposures, N-1 should also be attractive.
If you do it before I do, let me know.
Best,
DOmenico

[Ron Marshall]

TMY is great, but for exposures over a couple of minutes Acros is king.

[Anupam]

Here are three Fomapan 100 at night shots. The first one's 6x7 on a ShenHao - the others are on 4x5 sheets. I'd say beautiful results at night but it has some wild reciprocity values (which I have somewhere on my laptop - I need to look). Open the shutter and take a walk - literally . But I don't really mind because I love the results.

[John Kasaian]

Beautiful work, Anupam! I especially like the bicycle in the snow!

[Anupam]

Beautiful work, Anupam! I especially like the bicycle in the snow!

Thank you. Here is the reciprocity table from the Fomapan 100 datasheet. As I said, most other films will have better reciprocity characteristics.

[Erich Hoeber]

I love Foma and shoot it a lot, but the reciprocity is about the worst I've ever seen. Since I usually need to stop down to 22 or 32, it's not really an option for me at night. I usually go with TMY.

E

Thank you. Here is the reciprocity table from the Fomapan 100 datasheet. As I said, most other films will have better reciprocity characteristics.

[John Kasaian]

Thanks Anupam

Erich Hoeber: Have you tried TMY2 yet? If so how does it compare with old TMY?

FWIW Last summer I was in a similar situation to what I'm in now, only then I had FP-4+ on hand so I used it and I was blown away by the results! FP-4+ Became one of my favorite films for night shots.

[Erich Hoeber]

I've shot some TMY-2 and it seems to have the same look and feel as TMY. From what I've read, the improvements are incremental. Development times are (slightly) different. If you liked the original, you'll like this.

Re: FP4+, it was my primary LF film for years. I switched to Foma 200 recently to save some money. I think it takes time to get used to the quirks of any film, but Foma is not unlike FP4+. Freestyle sells Foma rebranded as Arista EDU Ultra for less than half as much as the Ilford films. The only downside of Foma (for me) is that the reciprocity is worse than standard films like TXP or FP4+. Also, there have been a few QC issues, which have been discussed at lenght in other threads.

E

Thanks Anupam

Erich Hoeber: Have you tried TMY2 yet? If so how does it compare with old TMY?

FWIW Last summer I was in a similar situation to what I'm in now, only then I had FP-4+ on hand so I used it and I was blown away by the results! FP-4+ Became one of my favorite films for night shots.

[Gregg Cook]

100 Delta is better and more even on reciprocity than anything else I have tried.